This class has been unlike any class I’ve taken here at UNC. I find that I am much more engaged in our projects than I am in any major grades for other classes because of the creativity of the assignments. By having the freedom to do projects on characters of my choice I am actually having fun doing big projects, which is something that I never thought would happen in college. There is no constant reading of books, memorization of information or constant paper writing. I thought at first that my analytical skills might suffer because of this, but the mixture of homework assignments and projects have broadened them.

Something I like a lot about the class that I am not used to is the semester-long revision of our assignments. I had trouble with this at first because I am only used to turning in a final work, and I found myself trying to perfect every project I have done so far. This is why I have turned in most of the assignments late. Even though I have worked extremely hard on all of the assignments, it surprised me how much I could improve them after I looked them over just hours following when I completed them. Furthermore, with all the assignments of my classmates posted on the internet I can see some of the aspects of the assignments in which they excelled and I did not think of at all. This allowed me to not only get the instructor's comments on how to improve my work, but to see the different things that other people did that never crossed my mind. I enjoyed the entire semester and hope to find another class similar to this one's style before I graduate.

Playlist

When given the playlist assignment, I first thought it would be simple to choose eight songs to illustrate the traits of a character. The internet is so extensive and it seems like there is a never ending quantity of songs available on iTunes. However, I found it very difficult to even find the character that I wanted to use for the assignment. My reasoning behind Howard Hughes was that he had such an intense, fast-paced life of ups and downs. There were so many aspects of his personality that I wanted to cover while keeping the playlist smoothly flowing from characteristic to characteristic. Selecting the first five songs was easy, but the last three became increasingly more difficult to fit the ones already chosen. I wanted to keep the genre of the music fairly similar because I thought the sound of the songs would help the playlist flow well. Furthermore, I attempted to find a variety of paces to the songs to represent the wide range of emotions and feelings felt by Hughes throughout his life. A difficult part of this project was that preparation was needed before the search for songs began, but you also had to keep your mind open to new ideas if you came across something that felt right. I found that I had jotted down so many random songs and notes to myself after a while that it made the selection process a lot easier. What I liked about this project compared to a paper was that I found my imagination constantly being used. Also, instead of just using words to describe the character, you first have to find a song to base those words upon. I felt that I improved many important skills in general from this project, including everything from improving my analytical skills to advancing my internet skills.

Original Playlist
Revised Playlist

Collages

To me this was the most difficult assignment because I imagined the collage that I wanted but could never seem to find the exact pictures that I envisioned. I would find a good set of pictures, but then one wouldn’t fit the way I wanted and I would have to start all over. This is why I think that this project has helped me become less stubborn and become more open to ideas with what is given to me. Also, similar to the playlist assignment, I realized preparation was key before beginning to search for images in this case. The collages were also a lot of fun to me. I usually get bored with doing a lot of work on one assignment for extended periods of time, but with this assignment I found that I could work on it for hours and stay focused. Furthermore, it improved my skills with Photoshop, which I was barely familiar with beforehand. I chose John Nash for my character collage because I thought using the layers in Photoshop I could accurately illustrate his attempt to forget the past while also showing that it still haunted him. The fading and replicating features also helped with the people and objects he was trying to dismiss from his mind. I am still working on my poem collage.

Collage of John Nash
Revised Collage of John Nash

Annotation Assignment

What I enjoyed most about this assignment was that we interpreted the poems as a group, instead of individually analyzing specific poems. With the whole class making a couple contributions to each poem were many different interpretations of the specific parts of all the poems. Seeing different meanings within the poems increased my analytical skills of poetry dramatically, making me read poems less literally and more broad-mindedly. The talk tool took analysis even further because it allowed us to respond to different classmates’ thoughts and begin a discussion concerning a confusing part of a poem. Annotating poetry has never been a strongpoint of mine so this group interpretation greatly helped me in how to pick apart and explain the meaning of poems. By analyzing so many of Emily Dickinson’s poems at one time I learned a great deal about their recurring themes and unique features: immortality and death, capitalization of nouns and use of dashes, and others. I also think this particular assignment was perfect for her poetry because of her ability to leave the meanings of her poems uncertain and open for interpretation. Furthermore, within a few short lines she expresses such extensive ideas and thoughts. This is perfect for a group assignment with individual contributions because in each stanza of each poem there are many words and ideas to examine and discuss.

“The Tint I Cannot Take is Best” – Discontent
“The Tint I Cannot Take is Best” – Array
“Struck I Was Not Yet by Lightning” – Bandit
“Struck I Was Not Yet by Lightning” - Maimed
“He Fumbles at Your Soul” – Naked Soul
“He Fumbles at Your Soul” – Scalps
“ My Life had stood – a loaded Gun” – Discussion
“My Life had stood – a loaded Gun” – Discussion on Vesuvian
“I’m Nobody, Who Are You” – Banish
“I’m Nobody, Who Are You” – Frog
“A Light Exists in Spring” – Color
“A Light Exists in Spring” – Furthest
“I Started Early Took My Dog” – Mermaids
“I Started Early Took My Dog” – Basement
“This World is Not Conclusion” – Philosophy Don’t Know
“This World is Not Conclusion” – A Species stands beyond
“ My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” – And every time I speak for Him
“My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” – Loaded Gun
“I heard a Fly buzz when I died” – Windows
“I heard a Fly buzz when I died” – Keepsakes
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” – Strove
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” – Drove
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” – Discussion on Surmised
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” – Discussion on Quivering and Chill

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